Gaines Ruger Donoho was born in Mississippi in December 1857. He early encountered the tragedy of life in general, and the Civil War in particular, when his father was killed, and he and his mother were moved to Vicksburg by General Ruger's Confederate cavalry. The General was his mother's relative. Donoho and his mother later went to Washington, D.C. where the young artist began to paint and study with area teachers. His interests tended to the Hudson River School painter Jervis McEntee.

After brief study at the Art Students League, New York City, in 1878, Donoho went to Paris, and the Academie Julian. He remained abroad until 1887, exhibiting regularly at the Paris Salon, and getting to know fellow American artists John Henry Twach...